Off and Running Ato Boldon's sizzling 9.86 seconds in the 100 meters served notice that he has taken dead aim at the world record and the man who holds it, Donovan Bailey

Enough with humility and gracious, congratulatory fluff. Morethan an hour after he had watched his training partner, AtoBoldon of Trinidad, win the 100 meters in a blistering 9.86seconds at the Mount San Antonio College Relays on Sunday; afterhe'd helped explain how Boldon had equaled the third-fastesttime in history (and Carl Lewis's fastest), had missed DonovanBailey's world record by just .02 of a second and had run fasterthan any other sprinter so early in any season, Maurice Greeneturned deliciously selfish.

"Hey, John, I've got to run a 100, and soon," he squealed atJohn Smith, the Los Angeles-based sprint coach who trains bothBoldon and Greene and who has chosen to keep them in separateraces until early summer.

Greene paced the worn grass of the Mt. SAC warmup area, manicwith energy. He is the world and U.S. champion at 100meters--and owner of a 9.86 of his own--and on Sunday he won the200 meters in a scorching 20.03 seconds. Yet it was only thefragrance of Boldon's 100 that excited him. "We are going to goat it," said Greene, eyeballing Boldon with a malevolence thatis both serious and familiar, repeated dozens of times a day intheir train-and-trash sessions at UCLA. "And when we go at it,that record is going way, way down."

It's Boldon's and Greene's common cause to annihilate the worldrecord of 9.84, set by Bailey at the 1996 Olympics, a passionthat is derived in part from their dislike of Bailey. Lastsummer at the world championships in Athens, Bailey tried fortwo days to unnerve Boldon and the internationally unprovenGreene, before Greene endured to beat him in the final, stickingout his tongue at Bailey as they crossed the finish line. Inpostrace interviews, the erudite Bailey belittled Greene'snervous, unpolished manner of speaking. More recently, afterGreene defeated Bailey in Australia in February, Baileysuggested to the Sydney Daily Telegraph Mirror, that Greene hasused performance-enhancing drugs. (Never mind that such talk isa given for any rising star in the track world.) "Donovan is anintelligent guy," said Boldon. "What he's trying to do is get arise out of Maurice. Well, he's going to get it; not only am Igoing to break his record, Maurice is going to break it, too."

Beyond Bailey, there's the 100-meter record. "Soft, very soft,"said Boldon. As dramatic evolutionary changes have unfolded inevery sport--300-pound football linemen who run the 40 in 4.9,baseball players who threaten to hit 70 home runs in a season,basketball players who break not just backboards but basketsupports--track, too, has been on fast-forward. Nearly everymen's record has been crushed in the last decade, many in thelast two years. But the 100-meter mark has barely moved,decreasing just .11 of a second since Jim Hines's 9.95 at the1968 Mexico City Games. The biggest drop during that period wasat the world championships of 1991, when Lewis lowered therecord from 9.90 to 9.86. (Ben Johnson ran 9.83 and 9.79, butboth marks were expunged after he admitted to using steroids.)"We're going to get this thing under 9.80," Boldon promised."The question is, How much under?"

When the 24-year-old Boldon speaks like this, particularly inApril, track cognoscenti cringe. He has two Olympic bronzemedals and a world championship (last year in the 200), yet hiswords and deeds promise much more. A year ago Boldon opened his100-meter season by running 9.89 at the Modesto Relays but onlyonce ran faster thereafter--a why now? 9.87 in a quarterfinalheat at the worlds. He finished fifth behind Greene in theAthens final. Similarly, he peaked in the 200 with a 19.77 inearly July in Stuttgart, then staggered home to his first worldtitle with a wind-aided 20.04 against a field without MichaelJohnson. Boldon is the slugger who hits 35 home runs by theAll-Star break and finishes with 42. "I know exactly what othersprinters will wake up saying when they see what I've run here,"he said. "'Boldon's at it again. We'll get him in July.'"

His midseason struggles are painful to watch not just becauseBoldon is so talented but also because he's a wellspring ofintelligence, humor and infectious enthusiasm. After winningSunday's 100 with a gusty-but-allowable 1.8 meters-per-secondwind at his back, Boldon carried the flag of Trinidad around themodest stadium that sits among green hillsides in Walnut,Calif., an hour east of Los Angeles. On the infield he conducteda press conference and then did several interviews on his cellphone. "He's the type of person whom people gravitate to," saysJonathan Ogden, a former UCLA track teammate of Boldon's and nowa Pro Bowl offensive tackle with the Baltimore Ravens. "He lovesto talk. We used to say, It's a good thing we all like Ato somuch, because if we didn't, we'd want to kill him for talking somuch. But I miss him. There are no people like him in football."

Boldon--the first of two sons of a Jamaican mother, Hope, and aTrinidadian father, Guy--comes naturally to his role. He wasnamed Ato Jabari, from the words in Yoruba, a West Africanlanguage, meaning "brilliant leader." Says Guy, "If you nameyour son Jesse or Frank, you can expect him to behave like aJesse or Frank. I wanted my children to look upward." Tounderscore his desire, Guy asked a favor from the developer whobuilt the family's home outside Port-of-Spain, and thus theknoll on which they lived was named Jabari Hill.

Ato lived in Trinidad until he was 14; after his parentsdivorced, he and his brother, Okera, moved to New York City withHope. There Ato was introduced to track by Jamaica (Queens) Highcoach Joe Trupiano, who witnessed Ato's arresting speed beingsquandered in a soccer game. Before Ato's senior year in highschool, Hope took a job as a human resources consultant inAtlanta and moved Ato to California, where he lived for a yearwith an uncle, Leroi Boldon, a veterinarian who gave Ato thekeys to his gold Mercedes 380 SL. "Playboy lifestyle without theincome," says Ato. "In retrospect, not a good thing."

This was especially true in light of Boldon's precocity, in notjust athletics but also art, music and academics. As a12-year-old in Trinidad, Ato says he ranked sixth in the countryon a standardized test given to 50,000 children, yet his gradeswere mediocre. As a high school senior, he says, he scored 1280on the SAT (including a strong 670 on the verbal portion), yetnearly failed to graduate and had to attend junior college fortwo years before enrolling at UCLA. The parallel to his trackcareer is obvious: Fast starts followed by a flat curve at best,a flameout at worst.

"I get bored very easily, I know that," Boldon said as he sat ata picnic table near the track. "Some years I open fast, and allof a sudden my mind is racing ahead and I'm thinking of what itwill feel like when I break the world record--or I just suddenlyswitch events. This year the word is patience." He keeps in minda line of Scripture that has become his theme. "Hebrews 12,"said Boldon. "'Let us run with patience the race that is setbefore us.'"

Patience to be sure, but as Greene would remind him: company,too.

COLOR PHOTO: HEINZ KLUETMEIER WHOOSH! Boldon, always fast early in the season, knows what his rivals will think after his time at Mt. SAC: We'll get him in July. [Ato Boldon sprinting]